


Ten Bad Miles

by Lavanya_Six



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Complete, Future Fic, Gen, Illnesses, Male Friendship, One Shot, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-31
Updated: 2011-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavanya_Six/pseuds/Lavanya_Six
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aang's dying. Zuko isn't coping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Bad Miles

The Firelord sat quietly with his oldest friend; their pai-sho game disturbed only by the faint quacking of turtleducks at the far end of the garden grounds.

Than Aang cleared his throat. "Do you realize that I'm as old as your father was when the comet came? Minus the ice."

Zuko drank longer from his teacup than was proper. Stalling bought him no wisdom, however. So he blandly offered, "Time does fly."

"Doesn't it? At least you kept your hair." Aang rubbed a hand over his bare skullcap. Grey eyes, thankfully still bright and alert, sparkled with good humor. Yet his expression was as lopsided as Zuko's own; one eye permanently narrowed. It wasn't due to any burn. A stroke two springs past had left its own scars inside Aang. "My mornings haven't felt right since I stopped needing to shave."

"You could do it anyway."

Aang made a face, a comical expression on a man with his surplus of age lines. "Waste of good lather. Now dyeing my mustache? _That_ is something I don't miss doing."

Everyone in their circle had prematurely grayed, save Ty Lee. No surprise given their duties and obligations to the world's peace, or to the new nation they had all cobbled together out of the war's wreckage. That wasn't even factoring in the stress of raising children!

Aang had first grown his mustache at age nineteen; the hairs came in bone white. That had been their first clue what his time in that iceberg had personally cost him.

Heart heavier with such thoughts, Zuko refilled their drinks.

"Mmm." Aang bowed his head over his cup, savoring the aromatic steam rising off it. "You always brew the best tea, Uncle!"

Hot leaf juice and broken porcelain spilled across the table.

Aang...

...snickered.

"T-THAT WASN'T FUNNY!"

"I thought it was hilarious. And don't yell at your elders, whippersnapper."

"You're four years younger than me!"

"Technically, I'm ninety-five years older than you. And _you_ certainly think that that counts for something, thanks." Aang waved off his anger; with the same gesture bending the shattered teacup back into one whole.

"Can we. Stop. Talking. About. This."

"Sure!" Aang chirped. "But only if you stop looking at me like I'm going to keel over. Because that," and here a certain hardness underscored his voice, "is only helping me understand Toph's issues with her parents."

"Just don't pull those jokes anymore. You almost gave me a heart attack." Aang's good eye widened in shock. Zuko cursed himself for being absentminded about tremor-sense.

Zuko turned over the empty teacup in his hands as Aang waited for an explanation. "Azula's lightning... it... it took a long time to really hurt me."

"How bad?"

He feigned a smile. "I won't be setting breaking my grandfather's records for length of reign."

Aang leaned back. "...Damn. Here I was, thinking you'd meet my successor."

"I'm not dying THAT quickly!"

"Neither am I!"

"..."

"..."

"...I'm sorry," Zuko said.

"This sucks," Aang declared. "First me, then Toph, now you."

Zuko sat up. "Toph?"

"Didn't you hear?"

"No!"

"She's going blind."


End file.
